1) India has made great strides in developing institutions of scientific research and technology.
2) The only science research institute in India before Independence was the Indian Institute of Science (HSc) established in 1909 in Bangalore with funding from J.R.D. Tata and the Maharaja of Mysore.
3) The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TlFR) was set up in 1945 on the initiative of Homi J. Bhabha, with some funding from the Tatas. It was intended to promote research in mathematics and pure sciences.
4) The National Chemical Laboratory, Pune and the National Physics Laboratory, New Delhi were the first institutes set up in India around the time of Independence.
5) Since then there has been a steady increase in the number of institutes doing research in pure sciences, ranging from astrophysics, geology/geo-physics, cellular and molecular biology, mathematical sciences and so on.
6)  The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is the umbrella organization under which most of the scientific research institutions function. The CSIR also advances research in applied fields like machinery, drugs, planes etc.
7) The Atomic Energy Commission is the nodal agency for the development of nuclear science which is strategically important, focusing both on nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons. The Atomic Energy Commission also funds several institutes of pure science research.
8) Agriculture is another area where there has been a significant expansion of research and development. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) is the coordinating agency for the research done not only in basic agriculture, but also associated activities like fishery, forests, dairy, plant genetics, bio-technology, varieties of crops like rice, potato, tubers, fruits and pest control, to name only a few of the activities covered by the Institute.
9) Agricultural universities are also actively engaged in teaching and research on agricultural practices. There are 67 Agricultural Universities in India, and 3 in Tamil Nadu.
10) Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) were set up as centres of excellence in different fields of engineering.
11) The first lIT was located in Kharagpur, followed by Delhi, Bomb' y, Kanpur and Madras (Chennai).
12) There are now 21 IITs in the country, in addition to 30 NITs (National Institutes of Technology) and about 10 IIITs (Indian Institutes of Information Technology).
13) There are about 3500 engineering colleges in the country, but government engineering colleges only number around 100.
14) There has been an explosion of private engineering colleges, particularly in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.
15) Unfortunately, the colleges vary significantly in the quality of education that they provide, and there are many graduates with engineering degrees who are not able to get jobs because they do not meet the standards and skill sets required by corporate employers.
16) In spite of advances, the general perception is that science research in India still has a long way to go to catch up with the more developed countries and China.
17) The research output in theoretical fields is rather disappointing and scanty in spite of the number of research institutions in the country.

1) India followed the example of the USSR in planning for development through five year plans. The Planning Commission was set up in 1950 to formulate plans for developing the economy.
2) Each Plan assesses the performance of the economy and the resources available for future development.
3) Targets are set in accordance with the priorities of the government. Resources are allocated to various sectors, like agriculture, industry, power, social sectors and technology, and a growth target is also set for the economy as a whole.
4) One of the primary objectives of planning was to build a self-sufficient economy.
5) The First Five Year Plan covered the period 1951-56. Till now there have been twelve Five Year Plans in addition to three one year plans between 1966 and 1969.
6) Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-2017) was the last plan. In 2015, the Planning Commission was wound up and replaced by the Niti Ayog
7) The First Plan (1951-56) focused on developing agriculture, especially increasing agricultural production. The allocation for Agriculture and Irrigation accounted for 31% of the total outlay.
8) After this, the emphasis shifted to industry, and the share of agriculture in total outlay hovered between 20 and 24%. By the Eleventh Plan it had come down to less than 20%.
9) The Second Plan (1956-61), commonly referred to as the Mahalanobis Plan, stressed the development of heavy industry for achieving economic growth.
10) The share of industry in Plan outlay was only 6% in the First Plan, and increased to about 24% after the Second Plan. But the share has been declining since the Sixth Plan, perhaps because the major investments in the public sector had been completed.
11) The allocation for power development was very low in the first four plans and this created a huge shortage of power in the country.
12) The first two Plans had set fairly modest targets of growth at about 4%, which economists described as the "Hindu rate of growth". These growth rates were achieved so that the first two Plans were considered to have been successful.

1) Education and health constitute the social sectors, and the status of education and health indicators are yardsticks for assessing the level of social development in a country.
2) Sadly, India is far behind many less developed countries, especially on health indicators like maternal mortality and infant mortality, and education indicators with respect to school education.
3) These poor outcomes are a reflection of the low share of plan outlay set aside for the social sectors.
4) This hovered between 16 and 18% between 956 and 1990 (Second to the Seventh Plans). The outlay has increased only from the Eighth Pian onwards due to a greater emphasis on social justice and inclusive growth.
5) But it was still less than 30% of the total outlay.
6) It crossed the one-third mark only .in the Twelfth Plan. Expenditure on education as a percentage of total GDP has been less than 5% in India, and compares unfavourably with China and other Asian countries.
7) Literacy levels have increased in India from 18.3% in 1951 to 74% in 2011. Female literacy still lags behind the male literacy rate at 65% as compared to 82% among men.
8) There has been a great increase in the number of schools from the primary to senior high school level and in the growth of institutions of higher learning.
9) In 2014-15 there were 12.72 lakh primary and upper primary schools, 2.45 lakh secondary .and higher secondary schools, 38, 498 colleges and 43 Central Universities, 316 State Universities, 122 Deemed Universities and 181 State Private Universities in the country.
10)  Enrolment in primary schools stood at 96%, and 40% in the secondary and higher secondary schools. However, the drop-out rate is 51% in primary schools, and as high as 62% in secondary and high schools.
11) Children dropping out of school mostly belonged to the poorer families in rural and urban areas and socially backward castes (SCs and STs).
12) The drop-out rate is particularly high among girl children. This is because they are often withdrawn from school either because the family is not able to afford to keep all the children in school and more often because they have to assist in household chores and looking after younger children in the family.
13) There are great inter-regional variations in the drop-out and enrolment rates, so that backward states and regions have the poorest record on school education.
14) A further problem is that government schools at all levels are perceived to be functioning very badly.
15) Teachers are often absent and seem to show little interest in providing good education to the students.
16) This has resulted in most parents, including low income parents, opting to take their children out of government schools (which are free) and putting them in private schools, paying high fees, because these are supposed to give better education.
17) Since private schools are rarely set up in backward regions with high levels of poverty, the regional disparities in school education have become more accentuated.

Under the Constitution of India, agriculture was a 'state subject', that is, each state had to pass laws relating to land reforms individually.
Thus, while the basic form of land reforms was common among all the states, there was no uniformity in the specific terms of land reform legislation among the states.
Abolition of Zamindari was part of the manifesto of the Indian National Congress Party even before Independence.
1) The government passed two amendments to the Constitution for abolition of zamindari system,
2) The First Amendment in 1951 and the Fourth Amendment in 1955, which removed the 'right to property' from the fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution and preempted the right of zamindars to question the expropriation of their land or the value of the compensation.
3) Finally, zamindari abolition was completed by 1956, and was possibly the most successful of the land reforms. About 30 lakh tenants and sharecroppers gained ownership of 62 lakh hectares of land. The total compensation actually paid to the zamindars amounted to Rs.16,420 lakhs
4) In sum, however, the reform only achieved a very small part of the original objective.
5) Many zamindars were able to evict their tenants and take over their land claiming that this land was under their 'personal cultivation'.
6) Thus, while the institution of zamindari was dismantled, many landowners continued in possession of vast tracts of land.
(b) Tenancy reform - Most large landowners in India tended to belong to the upper castes - Brahmin and non-Brahmin.
1) It was common for them to lease out the land to tenants. Usually these tenancy arrangements continued for long periods of time.
2) The rents received by the landowners generally amounted to about 50% or more of the produce from the land, which was very high.
3) Tenancy was a customary practice and agreements were rarely recorded.
4) Tenancy reform legislation was passed in the states regulating the rent at one-fourth to one third of the produce. But this could never be implemented successfully. The agricultural sector had a surplus of labour whereas land was a resource in short supply.
5) Price controls did not work in a situation when the demand exceeded the supply. All that happened was that rent rates were pushed under the table without any official record.
6) Tenancy agreements were made orally, and were recorded. The tenant thus always had to live with the uncertainty that their land could be resumed by the landlord any time.
7) When tenancy reform laws were announced many landowners claimed to have taken back their land for 'personal cultivation' and that tenants were only being employed as labour to work the land.
8) Tenancy reform was bound to be ineffectual in the absence of a comprehensive and enforceable land ceiling programme.
(c) Land Ceiling:
1) Laws were passed after the 1950s to enforce Land ceiling it.
2) Until 1972, there was a ceiling on the extent of land that a 'landholder' could own.
3)  After 1972, the unit was changed to a 'family'. This meant that the landowners could claim that each member of the family owned a part of the land which would be much less than the prescribed limit under the ceiling.
4) Deciding the extent of land under land ceiling was a complex exercise, since land was not of uniform quality.
5) Distinctions had to be made between irrigated and unirrigated dry land, single crop and double crop producing land.
6)  As all these issues were being debated in the policy forums, the landowners had plenty of time to manipulate the land records and create fictitious and fraudulent partition ot the land among relatives or trusts.
7) Further, many categories of land were not subject to ceilings. These included orchards, horticultural land, grazing land, land belonging to religious and charitable trusts, and sugarcane plantations.
8) These exemptions were also used to evade the land ceiling acts.
9) But the end results were disappointing, since the land thus surrendered was usually. unproductive land.

Under the Constitution of India, agriculture was a 'state subject', that is, each state had to pass laws relating to land reforms individually.
(a) Zamindari Abolition:
Zamindar - the class of landowners designated during British rule as the intermediaries who collected rent from peasants cultivating their land and paid that land revenue to the government under a Permanent Settlement.
1) Abolition of Zamindari was part of the manifesto of the Indian National Congress Party even before Independence.
2) Most provinces in India had enacted laws abolishing the zamindari system.
3) Land was taken away from the zamindars were distributed among the tenants.
4) The provincial legislatures also recommended the amount of compensation to be paid to the zamindars.
5) zamindars in various parts of the country challenged the zamindari abolition laws in court.
6) The government then passed two amendments to the Constitution, which removed the 'right to property' from the fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution and preempted the right of zamindars, to question the expropriation of their land or the value of the compensation.
7) Finally, zamindari abolition was completed by 1956, and was possibly the most successful of the land reforms.
8) In sum, however, the reform only achieved a very small part of the original objective. Thus, while the institution of zamindari was dismantled, many landowners continued in possession of vast tracts of land,
(b) Tenancy Reform:
Tenancy refers to an arrangement under which land was taken on lease from landowners by cultivators under specific terms.
1) Nearly half of the total cultivated land in India was under tenancy.
2) Not all tenants were landless peasants. Many small landowners, Some richer landowners also took additional land for cultivation on lease.
3) The rents received by the landowners generally amounted to about 50% or more of the produce from the land, which was very high.
4) Tenants could also be evicted at short notice, and tenants therefore always lived under some uncertainty,
Tenancy reform legislation was aimed at achieving three ends:
(i) to regulate the rent;
(ii) to secure the rights of the tenant;
(iii) to confer ownership rights on the tenants by expropriating the land of the land owners.
1) Legislation was passed in the states regulating the rent at one-fourth to one third of the produce. But this could never be implemented successfully.
2) The two Communist states, Kerala and West Bengal, were able to push through land reforms with greater success.
3)  In West Bengal, the programme to confer tenancy rights was called Operation Barga. This was quite successful, but the Communist government was criticized severely for giving official sanction to tenancy.
(c) Land Ceiling.
1) Land ceiling refers to the maximum amount of land that could be legally owned by individuals. Laws were passed after the 1950s to enforce it. In Tamilnadu it was implemented first in 1961.
2) Until 1972, there was a ceiling on the extent of land that a 'landholder' could own. After 1972, the unit was changed to a 'family'.
3) This meant that the landowners could claim that each member of the family owned a part of the land which would be much less than the prescribed limit under the ceiling.
4) Ultimately, only about 65 lakh hectares of land was taken over as surplus land. This was distributed to about 55 lakh tenants-an average of a little over 1 hectare per tenant.
5) Clearly, with their political power the dominant castes who were the big landowners managed to dilute and vitiate the entire legislation.
6) Efforts like Bhoodan started by Vinoba Bhave to persuade large landowners to surrender their surplus land voluntarily attracted much public attention.
7) But the end results were disappointing, since the land thus surrendered was usually unproductive land.
(d) Overall Appraisal:
1) Land reform legislation has overall not been a great success.
2) In economic terms, the dream of an agricultural sector prospering under peasant cultivators with secure, ownership rights has remained just that - a dream.
3) When agriculture has grown due to technological progress, a more efficient land market is 1 seen to be operating which is more conducive for long term growth.
4) In terms of social justice, the abolition of the semi-feudal system of zamindari has been effective.
5) The land reform measures have also made the peasants more politically aware of their rights and empowered them.